Chapter 1352: Upper Wasteland Complete! (3/5)

Chapter 1352 Shanghuang Complete! (3/5)

As these three divine sovereigns plundered, they simultaneously endured a terrifying erosion, their silhouettes continuously blurring into nothingness!

The mammoth contour of the great beast was twisting and fading at a pace visible to the naked eye, as if erased by an invisible hand.

The black tower's indestructible hull also grew faint and shimmering, like a reflection in water, poised to completely dissipate at any given moment.

The seemingly most fragile army of paper dolls had already seen a considerable portion of its flanks ignite with strange, ghastly white flames, instantly turning into flurries of spark-laden ash, drifting silently and speechlessly into the dead silence of the starry skies.

Witnessing this scene, the divine intent of these three sovereigns fluctuated violently; through this brief pillaging and observation, they had preliminarily determined that Shanghuang seemed indeed... at the very end of its rope.

This was no carefully orchestrated trap!

Thus, in the very next heartbeat—

Rumble!!

The starry skies shook violently, and the barriers of time and space shattered inch by inch like brittle colored glass, as the void was brutally torn open by three forces far more vast and heart-stopping than before!

Three supreme figures, condensing the will of their true bodies and radiating a devastating, oppressive majesty, descended with a crashing roar!

Their forms remained those of the great beast, the black tower, and the paper doll.

Yet at this moment, their brilliance far surpassed what it had been before, and their divine might was so concentrated that it caused the Wanggu Continent to wail and tremble, the vast starry skies boiling beneath this pressure!

The ones descending this time seemed to be their true, actual selves!

Disregarding all barriers, they came from the deepest depths of the void, instantly piercing through all dimensions to merge precisely into the projections of the avatars they had previously sent down.

Instant fusion!

This caused their already terrifying aura to skyrocket like a volcanic eruption, and the plunder of the dying Shanghuang abruptly intensified!

Amidst the roaring, the gargantuan face of Shanghuang shook violently.

One deep, bone-deep pitch-black crack after another spread frantically across its surface, like shattered porcelain!

Its soul-source was torn and devoured to an even greater extent by the black tower, and its flesh-and-blood essence suffered the same fate, chewed and swallowed more furiously by the giant beast.

The entire face was withering, drying up, and losing its luster at a visible speed, exuding a dense odor of death and decay!

And behind it, within the scarlet giant eyes of that great beast, the light of greed grew even more rampant, as if it had discovered an ultimate delicacy.

The plunder by the paper dolls filling the sky also intensified, those invisible threads of fate wrapping tighter and tighter, the stolen divine authority of fate merging into their paper bodies,

Causing those ghastly white paper cutouts to begin writhing in a bizarre fashion, their surfaces sprouting blurred facial features and skin textures,

Until faintly, one could even see strands of fate-lines, twisting like serpents and radiating an ominous aura, generating and extending within their bodies!

They were transforming from "paper" into "living things"!

Seemingly aware of the immense risk brought about by continuing like this, the opposing faces of Shanghuang saw the rift between the shadow face and the flesh face widen at lightning speed.

They chose to separate temporarily.

But right at this moment, from the deep recesses of the void, there came a low growl that froze one's very marrow!

A river gathered from a flowing, viscous, and filthy dark-gold liquid cut across the starry skies without warning, descending upon the battlefield!

It was none other than the Mother River!

Having endured and abstained until now, he finally confirmed there was no danger, and manifested at this moment without a shred of hesitation!

That turbid river water, like billions of greedy tentacles bearing a stickiness sufficient to corrode divinity, instantly wrapped around the Shanghuang that was about to separate!

The momentum of separation ground to a screeching halt!

Immediately after, the murky, viscous surface of the Mother River churned violently, and a massive, monstrous face aggregated from countless twisted, agonized faces abruptly surfaced!

This face opened a colossal maw that seemed to connect to an endless abyss, and toward the tightly ensnared Shanghuang—

Took a fierce, devouring gulp!

A vast amount of divine blood, flickering with strange divine light and exuding a heavy, rancid stench, was instantly and forcibly siphoned from Shanghuang’s withered face, pouring into the filthy waters of the Mother River like a waterfall.

Upon absorbing the divine blood, the waves of the Mother River instantly became even more surging and tempestuous.

While the already withered Shanghuang, under this fatal blow, became as weak as a candle flickering in the wind, the gray aura of death now too thick to dissolve!

Seeing the Mother River’s strike achieve success and Shanghuang’s weakness laid entirely bare, within the black tower, a cold, ancient divine intent, devoid of the slightest emotion, suddenly boiled over!

Behind it, time and space were once again plowed open by an even more terrifying force!

A bronze ancient tower, covered in verdigris and hung with countless tiny, twisting shrines that seemed to be silently wailing, slowly descended from the depths of that shattered time and space!

This was the true, original body of the black tower!

The previous descents had all been mere probings!

At this moment, the instant its true body descended, that suction force targeted at souls abruptly magnified by a hundredfold, a thousandfold, and more!

As if it meant to drain the souls of the entire starry sky dry!

And witnessing this, the fierce light in the giant beast's eyes exploded; it waited for a brief moment more—then suddenly reared its hideous head, unleashing a terrifying roar sufficient to shatter the stars!

Roar!

The void behind it completely collapsed, and a towering beast-head formed from countless writhing stars, broken planes, and unspeakable dark matter manifested out of thin air!

The beast-head was so massive it seemed capable of swallowing a galaxy in a single bite!

Carrying an aura that would destroy all things, its giant maw split open, and it bit down savagely toward Shanghuang!

The final paper doll was clearly the most cunning and cautious; even though the true bodies of the other three divine sovereigns had all manifested, he still remained motionless,

Until... the plundering by those three sovereigns reached a frenzied peak, and Shanghuang’s decay thoroughly displayed the signs of a final dead end—only then did two pinpricks of eerie light, ghastly white to the absolute limit, suddenly ignite deep within the paper doll’s countless hollow eye sockets!

The chest of one seemingly ordinary paper doll tore open without warning, and a miniature paper doll, its entire body swirling with a dizzying seven-colored evil light, exquisitely formed yet radiating an aura of ultimate misfortune, violently forced its way out!

The moment this seven-colored paper doll appeared, the surrounding space silently rotted and disintegrated.

Then, without any hesitation, it turned into a streak of seven-colored evil light that twisted the lines of illumination, ignoring all obstacles, and rushed silently and lethally toward the brink-of-collapse Shanghuang with a bizarre power meant to steal fate and alter the finale!

Yet right at the instant when the evil light of that seven-colored paper doll was about to touch the remnant face of Shanghuang, and the black tower's soul-sucking, the giant beast's flesh-devouring, and the Mother River's binding had all reached their most frenzied climax!

The tightly closed giant eyes of Shanghuang's face, which had been withered and on the verge of collapsing as if in eternal slumber, snapped wide open!

One pupil was a scarlet hue burning with endless karmic fire, scorching like a lava abyss!

The other pupil, however, was an absolute void that swallowed all light, capable of annihilating even nothingness itself!

Simultaneously, a voice overlapping with countless echoes, so cold it froze the very will of time and space, suddenly exploded within the perception of all the divine sovereigns like the final wail of billions of dying stars!

"You all... have finally come."

The moment this voice rang out, a drastic mutation suddenly occurred!

It did not come from a counterattack by that remnant face of Shanghuang, but rather from Ziqing, who had all along been contesting with Shanghuang and corroding its flesh!

It seemed that what he had been waiting for was precisely this moment!

When the true wills of the four divine sovereigns had completely manifested, greedily plundering Shanghuang’s essence and deeply linking themselves to this battlefield and to Shanghuang’s remnant corpse—Ziqing thoroughly unleashed the Ghost World!

Thus, the fog formed by the pervasive, ominous aura within the Ghost World abruptly expanded by billions of times!

No longer vague and ethereal, it instantly became as viscous as billions of years of corrupted blood, flooding the firmament at a speed surpassing thought!

The devouring had begun!

The behemoth’s head bore the brunt of it first—foul miasma instantly enshrouded it, and its flesh, woven from stars and planes, immediately erupted into a shrill, sizzling hiss.

It began to dissolve, to collapse!

The stars composing its form dimmed one by one, bursting apart and spewing fetid ichor, which the mist greedily devoured!

At Black Spire too, the same fate unfolded. The countless sorrowful shrines adorning its body froze the instant the fog touched them—their twisted visages solidifying mid-scream—before mold-like filth bloomed across the bronze tower itself.

The Spire’s soul-siphoning wail warped into broken, terror-stricken shrieks!

Even its indestructible bronze foundation began to melt!

Mother River fared no better.

The grotesque face formed from countless tormented countenances within her waters let out a silent, agonized howl. Her currents boiled violently as the fog forcibly consumed her, drawing her essence into itself!

Most uncanny of all was the Paper Man. Every one of his duplicates shattered at once, scattering like ash upon the earth.

His true seven-hued form flickered wildly within the tainted mist, its colors vanishing at terrifying speed!

Overwhelmed by mortal peril, he recoiled sharply, twisting fate itself in a desperate bid to flee—but the invisible threads tethering him to the Fates of Shanghuang, once conduits of destiny, now became fatal shackles!

The miasma surged up those very threads, ravenously corrupting his primordial source.

His body convulsed and curled midair, hues leaching away until he resembled nothing more than waste paper soaked in filthy water!

“Nourishment—greater nourishment!”

A deep voice, laden with the greedy hunger of a billion chitinous limbs scraping together, thundered through the minds of the four divine sovereigns!

Predators had become prey in an instant!

Flee!

The behemoth roared—a sound choked with infinite dread—as it thrashed madly, trying to tear free from dissolution, shedding shattered stars like scales!

Black Spire shrieked heaven-splitting cries, unleashing an unprecedented aura of deathly gloom in a futile attempt to repel the creeping blight!

Mother River churned violently; her colossal face of agony contorted as her dark-gold waters recoiled like living things, striving to sever their link to the fog!

The Paper Man acted most decisively of all—he severed every thread binding him to Shanghuang’s Fates on the spot, transforming into a tattered, dim gray wraith that fled recklessly toward the starry void!

But it was too late!

The ever-passive Face of Shanghuang stirred. Its withered black hair, vast as mountain ranges, began to writhe soundlessly amidst the churning fog!

It grew with frenzied speed, defying spatial distance, lashing out abruptly toward the four divine sovereigns!

In an instant, it ensnared them!

The behemoth’s colossal frame was bound tight, crushed by strands that pierced deep into its star-forged flesh, writhing as they emitted a skin-crawling sound of voracious sucking!

Black Spire too was cocooned in a dense web of hair; the strands coiled around its shrines, impaling the sorrowful faces and reversing their soul-draining power—now the hair greedily siphoned that energy for itself!

Mother River’s polluted currents were infiltrated; the suffering faces within her waters entangled by hair, their essence refined into pure divinity and devoured!

And the fleeing Paper Man—his gray silhouette barely escaping—was snared in an instant, yanked back with brutal force!

Thus, all four divine sovereigns were dragged bodily into the heart of the miasma!